Senator Ted Kennedy to undergo surgery for brain tumour Monday

DPA Washington, June 2 (DPA) US Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy was to undergo surgery Monday to remove a malignant brain tumour, US broadcaster CNN reported, citing a statement from the 76-year-old veteran politician. The last surviving Kennedy brother was being treated in the Duke University Medical Centre in North Carolina, and after recuperating at Duke for a week, he was scheduled to start radiation treatment and chemotherapy at Massachusetts General Hospital, the report said.

The long-serving Democratic senator was diagnosed with a glioma, a cancerous tumour of the brain that is particularly dangerous, after he suffered a seizure in May while out walking his dogs.

Doctors said that the seizure was caused by a tumour in Kennedy’s left parietal lobe.

When Kennedy, considered the patriarch of the Democratic Party, suffered his seizure, it was met with an outpouring of concern and shock in the US.

In 1963, Ted Kennedy buried his brother John Fitzgerald (Jack), assassinated when he was president, and in 1968, his other brother Robert (Bobby), who was also assassinated. DPA